


Relax

by doyoushipwhoiship



Category: Adam-12
Genre: Caring Jim Reed, Episode Tie-In: S4E5 The Search, Gen, Hurt Pete Malloy, Hurt/Comfort, My First Work in This Fandom, Other, References to car accident, Stubborn Pete Malloy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:47:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23430418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doyoushipwhoiship/pseuds/doyoushipwhoiship
Summary: This takes place in the week following S4E5: The Search. If unfamiliar, here’s a brief summary: Nighttime. The boys are called to a 211 (robbery) at a grocery store. Reed nabs one of the men while the other drives off; Malloy hops in the squad car and follows. Their radio has been malfunctioning so when Pete updates his location, nobody can understand what he says. Pete crashes the car, breaking a leg and possibly having internal injuries. Sergeant McDonald, after a few hours of his team’s sweep of the park, tells them to head elsewhere; Reed, however, won’t give up—he knows Malloy is in the park. Pete’s able to signal SOS using the broken radio and Jim hears it. The episode ends when Jim locates Pete; Pete is lying still on the ground and Jim feels for his pulse. Pete squints up, smiles faintly, and murmurs “Partner.” The end.Undoubtedly, at least in my mind, Reed would check up on Malloy daily during his recovery. The following scene is my attempt to describe one of those check-ups.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 19





	Relax

“Look, why don’t you take some pain meds and lie down for a while?” Reed gestured to the TV screen. “I can turn down the game and keep an eye on you…”

“No. I’ve done enough sleeping. And I took meds yesterday.”

“So? New day, new pain.”

Malloy grimaced as he shifted on the couch, pushing a pillow under his side to support him. Immediately after the accident, he thought he’d ruptured his spleen, but X-rays revealed he had broken three ribs. It hurt to cough, laugh, sneeze, sit, stand, or do just about anything, and the lack of activity was driving him bananas. Besides that, Reed’s mother-hen routine wasn’t helping. “I appreciate your concern, partner,” he managed, once he’d gotten the pillow in an okay spot. It wasn’t perfect, but it would do. “But I’ve seen what pain meds can do to people, you know, long-term. You get addicted to ’em.”

Reed frowned. “In your case, though, you’re healing. People with dependencies on drugs like that, they’ve got some other problem. Chronic pain that doesn’t go away. This is just temporary.”

“Doesn’t feel like I’m healing.”

“I wish you’d take something,” Reed pushed.

“And I wish you would leave me alone.”

The younger man followed Pete’s line of sight. Malloy wasn’t interested in the playoffs, that much was clear, but it gave him something to look at besides Reed.

“Hey, what’d you do that for?” snapped Pete, after Jim stepped across the room to shut off the appliance.

Jim ignored the question and joined his partner on the couch. “It’s hard to breathe,” he began, turning so that their knees (Jim’s right and Pete’s left, as Pete’s other leg was still propped up in its cast) practically touched, and leaning in so Pete couldn’t avoid eye contact. “You’re trying to keep still so you don’t move too fast, don’t twist the wrong way. Your range of motion’s limited. You can’t take deep breaths or else it feels like somebody’s stabbing you in the lungs. You try to breathe from your belly instead but sometimes you forget, and it hurts, and it takes way longer than it should to get your breath again, but you have to be patient.”

“Hey, genius, what’d you read this weekend? Surgeon general’s medical guide to breaking ribs?” Malloy tried a smile on Reed, but the man wouldn’t mirror it.

“In high school,” Jim continued, “I played football. Ran track. Didn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone when I got laid up junior year after a bad tackle.”

“Let me guess. Broken ribs.”

Reed’s expression said yes.

“So, what,” Pete hedged. “You’re some kinda expert? You understand how I feel? Know what I’m going through?” He shook his head, smile fading. “Like I said, Reed, I appreciate that you care, I just don’t think you can help me.”

“I’m not saying I’m an expert on anything.” Reed’s eyes strayed to his partner’s broken leg, to the pair of crutches propped up against the armrest, to the cut on Pete’s forehead that had scabbed over but was framed by a nasty bruise. He had a sudden flash, a vision of Griffith Park Road and of the car veering off, and of the crash, and how the cut might have happened; in his imagination he could see Pete’s head hit the steering wheel; see him slump, unconscious; see him bleed. Partner. That’s what he’d said, not Jim or Reed but the word that meant connection, their devotion and affection, an unbreakable bond that Mac had understood and respected when he let Reed keep looking.

“Partner.” Here, now, Pete said it again, extending his freckled hand to Reed’s, nudging his fingers. “Hey. You all right?”

Jim blinked, looking down at the fabric of his pantleg which he held in a clenched fist; Malloy’s hand there, too. Their eyes met. “You’re asking me?”

“Yeah,” Pete breathed. “Where’d you go off to?”

He described what he’d seen, down to the details of the blood on Pete’s cheek and what he’d told Mac—we’re close, real close—and as he said it, still looking down at their hands, he was vaguely aware of Malloy’s eyes widening, and a ruddiness flooding his fair Irish features. Reed bit his lip. He wanted to tell him, tell him that the words "I just don’t think you can help me" had hurt him, even though he knew full well he wasn’t a doctor or a nurse or even someone closer, like a spouse, though besides Pete’s on-again-off-again girlfriend, who else would take care of him the way Jim wanted to?

“You can stay if you want,” said Malloy as if on cue. “I suppose I can’t stop you, but—”

He’d removed his hand from Reed’s knee and leaned back, in the process twisting his torso at an angle that his ribs, despite their tight bandaging, did not like, and the motion had stolen the breath from his lungs like Reed said it would. He tried to take a breath using his diaphragm only, circumventing his chest, but the muscles in his stomach spasmed and—Don’t cough, damn it, don’t you dare—but it was too late. The coughing was worse than anything, even laughter, and Pete groaned in pain.

“Lie back. Lie back.” Jim sprang up from the couch and urged Pete’s legs to extend on the cushions where he’d been sitting. He knew the man’s muscles shouldn’t tense up so easily this way, and lying down would force the air lower, out of his lungs. Taking the pillow, he rearranged it by the armrest to support Pete’s head. “Just relax. Relax. You’re okay.”

Pete closed his eyes, holding both of his hands palm-flat to his body—one on stomach, the other on sternum—and concentrated on the pattern of Jim’s breathing, close enough that he could feel the man’s exhalations breeze across his face; focused on one of Reed’s hands on his brow, and the other hand wrapped snugly like a blood-pressure cuff around his upper arm.

“Relax,” he repeated, softer each time until the word was barely a whisper, hardly a decibel higher than Pete’s own breathing, which had since evened out.

“Jim.” Malloy opened his eyes to see Reed’s, which made him smile, not in amusement but sheer relief, and this time his partner echoed the gesture. “I was wrong.”

Reed’s eyes flickered; his smile faltered briefly. “Why?”

“Because you’re my partner, Jim. Of course, you can help me.”

**Author's Note:**

> As I mentioned in the tags, this was the first (decent and shareable) piece I wrote in the Adam-12 fandom. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed!


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